Follow-Up Questions vs. Corrective Tasks: When to Use Which

1. The One Question That Decides

Before choosing either option, ask: Does the person completing this checklist also fix the problem?

Yes, they fix it themselves → Ask a Follow-Up Question. The question appears inline, right after the failing answer, before they can continue. They describe what they found, what they did about it, what corrective action they took. This information becomes part of the submission record.

No, someone else needs to fix it → Create a Corrective Task. A task is created — either by the employee manually (Require Corrective Task) or automatically in the background (Auto-Create Task from Template) — and assigned to a different person, team, or role. The task has its own status tracking: Open → In Progress → Completed. 

2. What Each One Creates

Follow-Up Question:

• Appears inline in the checklist
• The employee answers it before moving to the next step
• Stored as a response within that specific submission record
• No separate task is created
• No status tracking — it's done the moment the employee types their answer

Corrective Task:

• A standalone task in the Tasks & Work Orders board
• Assigned to someone else (or the same person, depending on configuration)
• Has a full lifecycle: Open → In Progress → Completed (or Overdue/Missed)
• Linked back to the original submission that triggered it
• Can have a due date, priority, and category
• Completable independently from the checklist that generated it  

3. Using Both Together

They're not mutually exclusive. A failing step can trigger both:

1. A follow-up question asking the employee "What corrective action did you take right now?" — captures immediate response in the submission record
2. An auto-created task assigned to Maintenance — tracks the formal resolution with status and deadline

One captures the real-time documentation. The other tracks the follow-through. Both fire simultaneously from the same trigger. 

4. The Common Mistake

Using a follow-up question when a corrective task is needed. Result: the submission shows the issue was documented, but no task exists, no one was assigned, and no one resolves it. There's a record that it was found with no record that it was fixed.

If the issue requires someone else to physically go fix something — it's a corrective task, not a follow-up question.